Page 6
March 16, 2016
O PINION
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A Second Try at Rebuilding Our Nation
We must learn
from the past
m arian W right e deLman
Many of us have been
thrilled by the video of
106-year-old mentor and
school volunteer Mrs.
Virginia McLaurin vis-
iting the White House
during a Black History
Month celebration to
meet — and dance with — Pres-
ident and Mrs. Obama. Her joy
in being there and fulfilling her
dream of meeting the first Afri-
can-American President and First
Lady was infectious. Born a child
of South Carolina sharecroppers
in 1909, this was a day she nev-
er dreamed would come: “I didn’t
think I’d ever live to see a colored
president. I am so happy.”
Moments like these give us a
chance to appreciate how much
change a citizen like Mrs. McLau-
rin has seen in her lifetime. When
she was born America was firmly
in the grip of Jim Crow, segrega-
tion, racial violence and political
disenfranchisement that charac-
terized the decades following the
initial post-Civil War promise of
Reconstruction.
She moved to Washington,
D.C. in 1941, in time to see the
activism of A. Philip Randolph,
Bayard Rustin and others urging
by
the federal government to deseg-
regate our armed forces and pro-
vide more economic opportunity
for African-Americans. She saw
burgeoning civil rights activities
like these surge into a
transforming movement
across the South includ-
ing the 1963 March on
Washington in her new
hometown. And she saw
the Civil Rights Move-
ment lead to significant
dren and families of all races but
especially children of color face
today are very dangerous steps
backwards.
Unjust racial profiling and kill-
ing of Black boys and men by law
enforcement officers enjoined to
protect them; mass incarceration
of people of color — especially
Black males; massive attacks on
voting rights which especially im-
pact the poor, people of color, the
elderly, disabled and the young;
progress made. But Rev. Dr.
William J. Barber II, the head of
North Carolina’s NAACP chap-
ter and a leader in the “Moral
Mondays” movement, views this
historical moment with optimism
but urges vigilance. In his new
book with Jonathan Wilson-Hart-
grove, The Third Reconstruction:
Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics,
and the Rise of a New Justice
Movement, Dr. Barber argues
that the beginnings of a Third
Past lessons have led some scholars and
observers to believe we may be in a second
post-Reconstruction Era, fighting deliberate
widespread well-funded regression and backlash
against progress made.
changes — enough to allow her to
visit President and Mrs. Obama in
the White House in 2016.
When we look at arcs of his-
tory like this, where are we to-
day? Many scholars see the Civil
Rights Movement as a second Re-
construction Era and a second try
at rebuilding our nation into one
truly committed to liberty and jus-
tice for all. But just as the progress
of the first Reconstruction was fol-
lowed by decades of retrenchment
and reversal, many of the formi-
dable threats millions of poor chil-
and resegregating and substandard
schools denying millions of poor
Black, Latino and Native Amer-
ican children basic literacy, nu-
meracy and other skills they will
need to work in our increasingly
competitive globalized economy
should be siren calls to wake up
and fight back.
Past lessons have led some
scholars and observers to believe
we may be in a second post-Re-
construction Era, fighting delib-
erate widespread well-funded
regression and backlash against
Reconstruction are underway—
rooted in “fusion politics” that
have changed our nation before
and can do it again.
The multifaith, multiracial
movement is committed to a
14-point People’s Agenda includ-
ing education, health care, the
economy and reforming the jus-
tice and electoral systems, and is
supported by over 150 coalition
partners.
When Dr. Barber spoke to
a group of young leaders at a
Children’s Defense Fund event
last June, he explained why he
believes multiracial, multifaith,
nonviolent coalitions are essen-
tial right now: “So what many ex-
tremists are trying to do is abort
the third reconstruction. That’s
why they are telling America this
myth . . . You want a great Amer-
ica? Deny public education, deny
health care, deny living wages,
deny labor rights. You really, re-
ally want a great America? Deny
immigrant rights. Deny LGBTQ
rights. Deny women’s rights.
You really want a great America?
Deny the right to vote. You re-
ally want a great America? Turn
everybody against everybody.
Pit Muslims against Christians
and women against men. Call
the president everything you can
but a child of God . . . And if you
really, really, really, really want
a great America, make sure that
people can get a gun quicker than
they can vote. . . . And I stopped
by to tell you that in this moment
we better know who we are and
where we are, and that in this
moment of a possible third recon-
struction we are called to speak
truth in times like these.”
It is our time. We must all learn
from the past to end another era
of backlash and backsliding and
keep moving forward together.
Marian Wright Edelman is
President of the Children’s De-
fense Fund.
Donald Trump — From One Tyrant to Another
ration/suffering society. When
one succeeds by extinguishing
dissent, the others applaud; and
when one falls, the others cringe.
by m eL g urtov
Donald Trump is a tyrant
One thing I discovered long in thin disguise. He’s always
ago about tyrants: they love other talking about the people who
tyrants. They’re a mutual admi- have the least interest in sup-
Using power to
stay in power
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porting him as though they really
love him. Mexicans “love me,”
he says; so do Indians, Jews,
non-terrorist Muslims, Chinese,
Russians, Japanese, Germans.
In fact, Trump will unify them
all, he promises. Of course they
mostly loathe him, just as Trump
loathes all of them, as well as
many other non-white groups.
What is most revealing, how-
ever, are the people Trump ad-
mires, such as Vladimir Putin,
Saddam Hussein, and Moammar
Qaddafi—dictators who, Trump
has said, know how to eliminate
troublemakers and terrorists.
Sure they kill lots of innocent
people, but you have to admire
their grit.
What Trump specifically ad-
mires about tyrants is their will-
ingness to use their power to stay
in power. Putin, for instance,
wins Trump’s applause for
dealing decisively with ethnic
dissenters, critical journalists,
and uncooperative businesspeo-
ple — and he evidently sees in
Trump his mirror image. Thus as
president Trump thinks he would
be able to strike a deal with Pu-
tin, since tough guys speak the
same language. Trump must
surely have laughed at George
W. Bush for believing that he
had looked into Putin’s “soul”
and found something likeable
and trustworthy.
The same goes for China’s
leaders, whom Trump otherwise
detests and is sure he can out-
smart. They have his admiration
for cracking down on protesters
at Tiananmen in 1989. He once
told an interviewer: “the Chinese
government almost blew it. Then
they were vicious, they were
horrible, but they put it down
with strength. That shows you
the power of strength.”
Looking into Trump’s soul,
we see a truly authoritarian per-
sonality, someone who will bring
the same no-nonsense skills he
applies in the business world to
the White House. As president,
Trump can be expected to keep
his own counsel, downgrade
expertise, issue orders without
consultation, ignore Congress
and the law, recklessly conduct
foreign affairs, and pay no heed
to minorities, women, unions,
the press, NGOs, Democrats,
and (oh yes) most Republicans.
He will insult people willy-nilly
and humiliate anyone who gets
in his way. He will attack ev-
ery criticism as a lie, but have
no compunctions about lying to
push across his ideas. His every
audacious act will be carried out
in the name of restoring Amer-
ican strength after decades of
weakness.
The worst of it all is that for
perhaps one-third of the Ameri-
can electorate, and perhaps more,
this description of Donald Trump
is very appealing. But I remain
convinced that, like the tyrants he
admires, Trump will fall.
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by
PeaceVoice, is Professor Emer-
itus of Political Science at Port-
land State University.